Triumph! Google News removes Daily Kos from its index
Please note the update to this post at the bottom of the page.
I am delighted and surprised, needless to say.
In September, I was incensed to learn on LGF that Daily Kos, the prime example of the left-wing blogosphere lunacy, was being included in the index of Google News. I promptly fired off an e-mail to Google asking that it be removed from the index, not really expecting them to follow through on my request:
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 21:46:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: “tom sherman {_bleach}” <_bleach at yahoo dot com>
Subject: Daily Kos
To: <news-feedback at google dot com>Daily Kos is not a news source. It’s an oft-cited, oft-disproved radical lefty blog written by one person. It should not be in Google News.
Tom
Imagine my exultation as I received this reply today:
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 10:49:24 -0800
From: “Google News” <source-suggestions at google dot com>
To: “tom sherman {_bleach}” <_bleach at yahoo dot com>
Subject: Re: [#14649220] Daily KosHi Tom,
Thank you for your note. We apologize for our delayed response.
As you may know, Google News is highly unusual in that it offers a news
service compiled solely by computer algorithms without human intervention.
While the sources of the news vary in perspective and editorial approach,
their selection for inclusion is without regard to political viewpoint or
ideology.Please note that ‘Daily Kos’ has been removed from Google News. We
appreciate your feedback, and thank you for taking the time to write.Regards,
The Google Team
A sample search for “Bush” from the source “Daily Kos” confirms that it’s been removed from the index. Note the result below the search box: Source daily kos not found.
UPDATE 12/23/04: A couple of weeks later, an update is probably in order. First of all, Kos himself says that the removal of DailyKos.com was due to his request, not my e-mail. I cannot verify this. However, several circumstances make me question Kos’ late entry to the fray:
- Kos offers no proof. No e-mail exchange with Google. Nothing. Not even when prompted by his own readers.
- Removal from Google News = lost traffic. Where’s the logic in that?
- His claim that he requested his site be removed came quite late in the discussion, and furthermore, he never announced in any other forum that he made such a request. Quite the contrary—the Kossacks were pretty pleased to get listed in Google News in the first place.
With that said, I should temper my enthusiasm above with the warning that there’s a good chance that I didn’t cause Google to kick out Kos. Robert Cox summarizes this nicely in his post on the subject of Google News and blogs, so I’ll quote him liberally:
You can read the whole exchange below. I think when you read it you will see that Tom Sherman’s euphoria in implying that he caused Daily Kos to be removed from Google News is a tad overstated to say the least. In fact, the e-mail Tom posted merely observes the fact that by the time Google News responded to Tom Daily Kos has been removed.
I am not saying that my request had more of an impact than Tom’s. I suspect there were any number of people, including Tom and I, who had the same concern about Daily Kos and at some point this past fall Google News got around to removing Daily Kos. In fact, Alex pointed out to me that Daily Kos had been removed (and some other blogs) weeks before Tom’s post; I just never thought to post about it. Tom certainly deserves credit/attention for spreading the word and so a doff of the cap to him.
The real lesson, however, is that Google News is not ALL ALGORITHM. They are willing to consider ADDING a site that is not captured by their algorithm and are willing to REMOVE a site that is captured by their algorithm but not meet their criteria for a new site.
To Robert’s ruminations, I would add this: Google News needs to define what is and is not a “news source.” In the wake of this little brouhaha, some of the Kossacks wanted to start up a little campaign to deluge Google with requests that conservative blogs and news sources be removed from Google News. To properly deal with such a campaign, Google must first have a solid, logical definition of “news source” at this disposal. And, as Adam Finlayson rightly points out, blogs aren’t news. That goes for conservative blogs and liberal blogs.
December 8th, 2004 at 2:57 pm
YES! Thank-you!
December 8th, 2004 at 3:58 pm
I second that. It’s one thing to have a perspective, it’s quite another to be so blinded by partisanship that a blogsite is willing to sow any lie just to see what sticks. Even in free discourse there has to be some minimum attempt by participants to be accountable for the things they claim to be true.
December 8th, 2004 at 4:33 pm
Google: Kos Not News
According to JotSheet, Google News has removed Daily Kos from its list of sources. What used to seem like contradictions in terms……
December 8th, 2004 at 5:34 pm
Congrats
December 8th, 2004 at 8:15 pm
Daily Kos removed from Google News
Finally…radical lefty blog Daily Kos has been removed from Google News. Jotsheet has all the details……
December 8th, 2004 at 9:08 pm
tsk tsk tsk
a bit jealous that Daily Kos gets so much attention and your site doesn’t ?? :)
December 8th, 2004 at 9:09 pm
Jealous of his traffic? Absolutely.
December 8th, 2004 at 9:27 pm
Great job.
December 8th, 2004 at 10:20 pm
“I second that. It’s one thing to have a perspective, it’s quite another to be so blinded by partisanship that a blogsite is willing to sow any lie just to see what sticks.”
I agree. I’m going to send the same e-mail to Google to get NewsMax and WorldNetDaily removed. Turnabout is fair play, correct? Or is blind fascism okay with you guys?
December 8th, 2004 at 10:54 pm
Turnabout’s fair play in my book, although the websites you cite are much closer to “legitimate news sources” than Kos (just a blog).
December 8th, 2004 at 11:57 pm
fox news is next
December 9th, 2004 at 7:17 am
Blind Facism. Perhaps one day, arguments can be made online without “facism” being brought into it. Turnabout is certainly fair play.
December 9th, 2004 at 11:04 am
Why should anyone be jealous of his traffic? The dishonesty in the Blog Awards voting suggests there is no reason to believe anyone knows what his real traffic numbers are.
Well, except maybe him. And a script writer or two?
December 9th, 2004 at 11:09 am
Not to take away from you tooting your own horn or anything, but according to Daily Kos, it was removed about a month before the election at the request of the site’s organizer, Kos. Apparently he had a problem with the way the stories were being aggregated, whatever that means. (see link in my name)
RealAmerican - If you want to request removal of something more similar to Kos, but on the right-wing side of the equation, try GOPUSA (http://www.gopusa.com/). FWIW, I agree, Daily Kos is not really a news site.
December 9th, 2004 at 11:10 am
I understand your goal was to not see KOS on Google News, so in that way it was a win, I wouldn’t claim this as a ‘Personal Victory.’
In the KOS thread on this same subject, Kos himself says he asked recently for the site to be removed.
Is it any wonder to you why KOS has so much more readership then you? Just maybe because the site doesn’t feature High School DRIVEL like this on the front page, let alone above the fold.
Yours,
Shane H.
December 9th, 2004 at 11:19 am
Bravo, Sir! You are a true patriot, a non-girly-man and you have an *OBVIOUS* commitment to Journalism:
Seriously, though, it’s called PERSPECTIVE.
Out of all the Google sources, which Include Russia’s PRAVDA (Which used to be the state-run news of the USSR and has run editorials actually endorsing the fact that there is a RACE of prehistoric Humans LIVING INSIDE THE MOON) and Xihuana, the famously accurate state news of China, you complain about KOS which never claims to be fair & balanced, unlike other faux news channels.
December 9th, 2004 at 11:23 am
I’m a fairly partisan conservative and I can’t stand NewsMax for one simple reason - they almost never link to any source material. I never cite them on my own blog.
WorldNetDaily is a step up from NewsMax. The problem with WND is the high tinfoil factor. The occasional good pieces on issues like Terri Schiavo are sullied by “Harry Potter is inducing your children to SATAN!” WND at least provides links to source material, and that allows me to check how badly they’re taking things out of context.
December 9th, 2004 at 11:37 am
Hey guys, just an FYI. The “Kos gets more hits than you!” line doesn’t hurt my feelings, but you can keep working with it if you don’t have any other material.
Carry on now.
December 9th, 2004 at 1:29 pm
Not to point out the obvious, but isn’t Kos just a digest of links to credible news sources, i.e., not really news at all? All the sites it links too are in the Google News index.
At best Kos replicates Google News service and therefore clutters the index. Think Google News Alerts… do I really need a link to a USA Today story *and* a link to Kos linking to USA Today?
December 9th, 2004 at 7:59 pm
Google News v. Blogosphere or Defining News
The Daily Kos was removed from Google News. We will learn that it was at the request of Kos, but it still raises an interesting question: are web logs news?
Blogs aren’t news
news: n., information about recent events or happenings… [and the] p…
December 10th, 2004 at 8:19 am
Awwwww. Poor widdle wiberals visiting sites and flaming conservatives. Guess what? You still lost.
December 11th, 2004 at 6:49 am
wow! I can’t believe so many people read your weblog! Moreover, I can’t believe so many people care. But seriously, that’s awesome that you affected (gr?) some change in the e-world. Let me know when, where, and how much fellatio you want in return for your benevolent efforts.
December 11th, 2004 at 7:46 pm
Daily Kos Removed from Google News?
Reading here it would appear that Google has stopped indexing Kos as a news source. Guess that makes him
December 23rd, 2004 at 12:22 pm
Google News
More than a few readers have written or commented on Google News “bias” over the past few months. I was more than a little surprised to see that blogs like Daily Kos and Wonkette were showing up in Google News….
January 18th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Blogs Worthy of Google News?
Not an unexpected email from Google… Hi Scott, Thank you for your note. We have reviewed http://www.slantpoint.com but cannot include it in Google News at this time. We do not include news-related blogs or other news-related sites that are written and maint…
January 25th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
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